Today we were EXHAUSTED!! The Pirate and Princess Party the night before had really knocked us out, but we managed to get up and grab some unimportant breakfast from the Pop Century food court (I was taken to eating Pop Waffles with strawberry topping EVERY DAY! - hey its vacation!) and we got ready to go to Animal Kingdom. The day was beautiful and I was SO excited to go to Animal Kingdom, not only because I LOVE animals, but for Expedition Everest!! On the bus ride over, we were pumped about our first day at Animal Kingdom. It was the only park we HADN'T seen yet!
We arrived at the gates and had to wait in line, because we were the first few there. While we were waiting, we got a visit from a talking tree. Todd thought it was the coolest thing ever, but it was gone before I could snap a picture. I love the Disney puts so much magic and detail into things. I mean, talking trash cans, talking trees .. its those little extraordinary things that make it even more special then any regular vacation! When they finally let us through the gates, everyone took off running, only to be stopped after the Oasis and put behind a rope to watch the preshow. Todd and I were jittery and anxious to get to Everest, but we tried to be patient and enjoy every moment of the preshow.
Instead of letting the rope drop and having us stampede to Everest however, they forced us to follow slowly behind a big flag in order to get to Everest. Todd and I were angry, but calmed down once we got there and realized we would be one of the first to go on! When we did arrive at Everest, I was shocked. ANIMAL KINGDOM IS AMAZING!! We grabbed fastpasses and then got on one the first ride of the morning with NO WAIT!
Everest was AMAZING! My favorite ride, by far out of any at Disney.
After we rode Everest twice and got a fastpass for later, we made our way to Dinosaur. We rode Dinosaur with no wait TWICE. It is a really jerky ride and made Todd nauseous. But I thought it was pretty fun!! After that we went into Dinorama, but we didn't ride anything, just kind of browsed.
After, we made our way back to Everest, to use our fastpasses for our third ride.
It was great and we bought pictures of a lot of the rides. I could have ridden Everest all day, but Todd thought it was time for something else.
Finding Nemo the Musical was scheduled to start shortly so we hopped in line for that.
We sat in the front row and I was super excited because Finding Nemo is one of my favorite movies and I had heard that the Musical was excellent. The puppetry was amazing, however I found that it was pretty distracting having actual people talking in front of you. It was hard for me to get into it. For example there is an actual man on top of Crush singing, its very difficult to pretend that it is Crush. Todd didnt like it, I thought it was alright. But I was a little disappointed. They should figure out a way to just make it puppets, no people.
After Nemo, we headed over to Harambe and went grabbed fast passes for Kilimanjaro Safaris. Then we headed to Tusker House to grab some lunch before our safari ride. It was pretty crowded inside, but I was excited to eat there. I had heard a lot of good things about it. I found us a table outside, it was secluded and nice and really seemed as if we were in Harambe. In fact, we sat in a section which had all sorts of African ads and a Harmbe sign right behind us. It was really nice.
This is the inside :
The Outside:
We each got the chicken sandwich. YUM! It was delicious!! We both really enjoyed our meal there. The chicken sandwich was great and our desserts were fabulous. I loved my carrot cake!!
After lunch, we still had a little time before our safari, so we watched some street performers outside of Tusker House. It was a lot of fun, they sang and danced. I was suprised at how authentic it was. I think this is why Animal Kingdom became my favorite park, because you really feel that you are there in these different faraway places, despite that your only in florida. Its great!
We headed to our safari, where encountered some EXTREMELY rude people in line. Lets call them "The Line Manipulators" or "TLM" for short. So as you know from my following installments, Todd and I are kind of no-nonsense people. We are competitive and we like when things are fair. Well, while in the line, we had a family of three carefully trying to maneuver their way to the front of the line. Several times they tried to slip past us. They were SO sneaky. Everyone was commenting on it. They were trying all sorts of things to get to the front. Todd and I banned together though and made it impossible for them to get past us - those little sneakers! Anyways, enough about "TLM's", lets get on with our safari!
We got on our truck and we were pumped! We were totally ready to see some animals! We sat somewhere in the middle on this safari and I had my camera ready to go!
We thoroughly enjoyed our safari. There were a lot of gasps and "oohs" and "ahhs" out of me! Todd loved it. The animals weren't as active though because it was the afternoon, so we were even more determined to go on a morning safari.
Although my pre-trippie has turned out to be a trip report of years past....
